The first major culture to celebrate the
importance of the male nude statue
was that of ancient Greece, whose religious festivals frequently included
athletic competitions in which young nude males demonstrated their physical
prowess and competed for significant honours. Greek
art mirrored Greek life, and thus from the early Archaic Age (600-500
BCE) the standing nude youth (kouros) became a regular image in
the sculptural iconography of Classical Antiquity.

Some of the most famous male nudes were
sculpted by unknown artists. They include: The Farnese Heracles
(5th Century BCE), the fabulously balanced Zeus of Artemision (c.470),
The Belvedere Apollo (330), The Dying Gaul (240) and the
semi-relief The Barberini Faun (220). The greatest known Greek
sculptors of standing male nude statues include: Polykleitos
(5th century), Phidias (c.488-431
BCE), Myron (Active 480-444 BCE),
Praxiteles (Active 375-335 BCE), and also Hagesandrus, Athenodoros &
Polydorus (1st-2nd century BCE, creators of Laocoon
and His Sons).

Greek
sculpture created a huge number of male nude statues (kouroi),
representing either ordinary individuals - created as votive offerings
for Gods in religious sanctuaries - or the Gods themselves.

It's important to realize that in creating
nude men and women, Greek sculptors were typically celebrating an ideal
- an ideal state of health, youth, and geometric proportion - rather than
the physicality of a naked individual. Thus the Greek male nude was created
to appeal to the mind rather than the senses.

While the Greeks admired and celebrated
the male nude in both sculpture and painting, other parts of the ancient
world took a very different view, and considered nakedness to be a sign
of disgrace, and military defeat.

Male Nudes in Roman
Art

Although artists in ancient Rome were slavish
imitators of the Greeks whom they considered to be far superior in all
the visual arts, especially sculpture, they also followed the Roman doctrine
that art should serve the interests of Rome, and promote its power. Nude
Emperors were not likely to impress Barbarian tribesman, but tall, imposing
soldiers might. Thus in Roman art, with
some exceptions, idealized nudity was replaced with political and military
imagery, exuding realism and gravitas.

EVOLUTION OF SCULPTURE
For details of the origins and
development of the plastic arts
see: History of Sculpture.

Male Nudes in
Byzantine Art

Unfortunately for admirers of the kouros
and the kore, and nude art in general, Christianity largely put
a stop to it. A semi-nude Christ on the Cross was fine, but in general,
Jesus, God, the apostles, other masculine Christian images, were depicted
wearing clothes. This was in line with Gospel scripture and the story
of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, whose nakedness was associated
with shame and punishment. It also fitted with the general notion that
nudity was seen as a threat to the spiritual well-being of the individual.
The fact that nearly all Byzantine
art was religious meant that nudity was even less acceptable. Occasional
non-religious classical themes, such as those illustrated on a number
of Byzantine ivory caskets, might include male nude imagery - sometimes
quite detailed - but these were the exception. For more, see: Christian
Art of the Byzantine Era (c.400-1200).

Note also that Byzantine religious culture
forbad any three-dimensional human representations. Therefore, there was
no sculpture in Byzantine art, and as a result much less call for male
(or female) nudes. Also, Byzantine authorities saw their culture as a
beacon of Christian goodness surrounded by pagan darkness. And because
they associated nudity with the pagan Greeks, they saw it as something
primitive and backward.

Male Nudes in
Medieval European Art

Romanesque and Gothic art was dominated
by sculpture, especially ecclesiastical stone
sculpture, notably column statues - none of which featured any nudity.
Until the Renaissance, the Christian Church was virtually the only major
patron of the arts, financing almost all the monumental architecture,
sculpture, painting and illuminated manuscripts in Europe. It had no need
for images of naked Gods and thus discouraged the use of nudity in visual
art, not least because of its emphasis on the values of celibacy and chastity.
This stance effectively eliminated all study of the nude figure, as well
as drawing from life. Rome, like Constantinople, considered nudity as
undermining the spiritual and physical well-being of the individual.

Male Nudes
in Renaissance Art

The return to classical values and Greco-Roman
culture during the Italian Renaissance reinstated the nude form (male
and female) as the ideal standard of representational
art. The male nude, in particular, was used in several iconic works
of sculpture during this period, including the bronze statue of David
(c.1435-53) by Donatello, and the marble sculptures Bacchus (1497),
Dying Slave (1513-16) and David by Michelangelo. Later the
Mannerist artist Giambologna
produced his awesome Rape of the Sabine Women (1581-3). Other examples
of nude male statues of the Renaissance include: Heracles and Cacus
(1525-34) by Baccio Bandinelli;
and Perseus (1545-54) by Benvenuto Cellini.

It is important to understand, however,
that in Renaissance art, nudes were
not the idealized and geometrically proportioned figures of classical
Antiquity. They were real, individual, flesh-and-blood creations. For
instance, the David by Michelangelo
(1475-1564) is far from mathematical perfection, and, in fact, could hardly
be more different from the slightly effeminate version of David
by Donatello (1386-1466).

So what happened to Christian morality?
Well, if it deferred to the genius of Michelangelo, it's fair to say that
the Christian Church remained ambivalent, even antipathetic, toward the
male and female nude. Indeed the Council of Trent (1545-63) attempted
to halt the "licentious" and "paganizing" elements
that they claimed had become so widespread in 15th and 16th-century religious
art, under the influence of classical canons.

Male Nudes in
Baroque Art

By 1600, Mannerism, the final phase of
the Renaissance was over, but the latter's influence endured for at least
three centuries. This was due to the fine
art academies which sprang up across Europe during the 16th and 17th
centuries, to promote painting and sculpture. Their "academic
art" placed great emphasis on drawing from the nude, and thus
kept alive the figurative tradition of Michelangelo and others. However,
in Baroque art, nudity was
largely, though not wholly, confined to allegorical or mythological works.
Rubens for example used the male nude in his mythological
paintingThe Drunken Hercules (1614), Caravaggio
used it in his picture Amor Vincit Omnia (1603), while Guercino
(1591-1666) ("squinter") - in his picture portaying the seizure
of Samson - painted Samson as the lone nude, unable to resist.
In sculpture, Bernini
set the standard of male nudity with works like Pluto and Proserpina
(1621-2) and David (1623-4), followed by Pierre
Puget (Milon of Croton, 1671-82), Francois
Girardon (Pluto Abducting Proserpine, 1693-1710), and Balthasar
Permoser (Apollo, 1715). Jean-Baptiste
Pigalle caused a scandal with his magnificent nude statue of the aging
Voltaire (1776).

Male Nudes in Rococo
and Neoclassical Art

Male nudity was a regular feature of 18th
century art, though perhaps less evident than female nudity - at least
during the Rococo period. It
was used mostly in history paintings (that is, works containing "istoria"
or narrative, such as mythological pictures), in decorative schemes, and
especially in sculpture. In Neoclassical
art, sculptors like Antonio Canova (Apollo Crowning Himself,
1781; Perseus with the Head of Medusa, 1797-1801; Damoxenos,
1796; Hercules and Lichas, 1795-1815) modelled his sculptures on
classical forms - his Perseus imitates the proportions and stance of the
renowned Apollo Belvedere - as did John Flaxman (The Fury of
Athamas). The French painter Jacques-Louis David also followed a traditional
pose in his painting Male Nude Known as Patroclus (1779), as did
Jean-Auguste
Dominique Ingres in his Oedipus and the Sphinx (1808). The
great German painter and figurative draughtsman Anton
Raphael Mengs also produced a number of outstanding male nudes, including
his crayon and charcoal drawing Seated Nude as Cyclop (1770).

Male Nudes in
19th-Century Art

The 19th-century provided one final opportunity
for the classical tradition of the male nude. Pierre-Charles Simart took
full advantage with his marble masterpiece Orestes Sheltered in the
Pallas Altar (1839-40). Jean-Baptiste
Carpeaux used nudity in his sombre bronze Ugolino (1862), and
Rodin produced masterpieces
like The Age of Bronze (1876), The Thinker (1881) and The
Kiss (1889), none of which conformed with the classical theory of
proportions. An altogether more intimate style of male nude was conceived
by the Belgian figurative sculptor George Minne, in works like Adolescent
I (1891) and Kneeling Youth at the Fountain (1898), while the
French artist Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercier produced a remarkable David
(1872-3), with echoes of Donatello. Masculine nudity in 19th century painting
was exemplified by vigorous images like Male Nude (1810-11) by
Theodore Gericault.

Male Nudes in 20th-Century
Art

Despite the advent of Cubism, Expressionism
and other modern schools, and the consequent decline of the classical
tradition, the male nude remains a potent symbol in 20th century fine
art. In sculpture, male nudity is exemplified by Feral Benga (1935)
by Richmond Barthe; The Storm (1947-8) by Germaine Richier; and
the hyperrealist Couple (1971) by John
De Andrea. In painting, the male nude is exemplified by numerous works
of the great figurative genius Lucian
Freud, such as Naked Man with a Rat (1977).

Although photography
has latterly become accepted as a fine art, I would argue that the absence
of barriers between the photographic print and the viewer places the medium
in a significantly different category from painting and sculpture, which
is why it is not covered here. But see also camera artists like Robert
Mapplethorpe and others.